It’s Time to Take Back This Word the Dick-tionary Hijacked
The origin story of a power-filled word
Virago
I had never heard the word before I met Suzanna Quintana at Medium’s Pub Crawl a few days ago.
Immediately, however, I understood the word choice for her publication.
Virago is an incredible word of power and substance. It is also a word that has been used maliciously, like witch, like virgin, like hysteria, among others — articles for another day.
Suzanna proudly displays the definition of virago on the header image of her publication.
vi-ra-go: a woman of strength, courage, and spirit
Dick-tionary Definitions
Pardon my pun, or don’t, but academia is almost exclusively patriarchal and the dictionary definitions for many words are defamatory towards women.
Here are a few of the very unfavorable entries for Virago:
virago — Cambridge · a violent, unpleasant woman who is often angry
virago, noun — Merriam-Webster ·
1: a loud overbearing woman: TERMAGANT (a termagant is a violent deity ascribed to Islam by medieval European Christians, also an overbearing or nagging…
